I had some funny experiences last week in Norwich, where I was working on Radio 5 Live’s election coverage. In a coffee shop on the square, I met Colin, a revolutionary socialist.
I asked Colin, who to my mind looked a little like Lenin, what he made of the election manifestos.
He favoured Labour’s effort, but said that what the country really needed was a period of “therapeutic disaster socialism” to sort us all out. I’m not sure what that involves, but Norwich seemed like an unlikely place for such a radical project to be born. I wish him well with his endeavours.
Altogether more centrist were the band Scouting for Girls, whom I had interviewed the day before at the University of East Anglia. They were essentially Liberal Democrats, but with less enthusiasm for that party than they had professed in the past. They invited a couple of colleagues and me to their gig that evening at the student union. I was worried about being the oldest punter in there but Roy, the band’s frontman, told me not to worry.
It turned out that far from being the oldest person in there, I was the second oldest after our engineer, Gary. We shuffled uncertainly from foot to foot, not exactly dad dancing, but not stock still either. We sipped lager out of plastic pint vessels. It was dark and crowded, so we felt we were getting away with it.
But then a student – Izzy, drama, from Croydon – tapped me on the shoulder and asked why there were old people at this gig. She also suggested that we lose our overcoats as it was very hot in there and it was only a pound to leave them in the cloakroom.
Nice girl. She offered me a sip of her snakebite and black to perk me up. I told her she should volunteer with Help the Aged.
• Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and columnist for the Guardian
